The JROTC Silver State Brigade ended its 22-23 school year with a host of new adventures for Cadets during its annual JROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge!  JCLC is an experiential learning event that includes adventure training, overnight stays, evaluated leadership and camaraderie with Cadets training in mixed companies from 10 of the JROTC programs across the Brigade. This year, 150 Cadets received training in lake kayaking and survival, high ropes obstacle course, drownproofing and aquatics and rappelling.  The Cadets also honed their leadership skills, teambuilding and teamwork skills and spent their nights at Galena high school, which was used as their base camp.  Cadets who completed all the training received several ribbons and arcs and 20 cadets were selected as distinguished honor graduates!

The top Cadets in the Silver State Brigade competed on 16 November for Cadet and Junior Leader of the Semester.  The competition was held at Wooster High School. Eight Cadets competed in each category and 30+ Cadets supported the competition.  Congratulations to the Cadets below for their exemplary performance yesterday at the SSB 1^st Semester Cadet Boards and to their Instructors who prepared them so superbly!  I sat in on a few of the boards and the competing cadets totally impressed me with their military bearing, knowledge and presence during such a stressful event for them!

I must also commend your Battalion Commanders and Senior NCOs who ran these boards - They were on the level of any military board I experienced during my career - these are seasoned leaders who needed little guidance whatsoever - impressive!

Thank you, Chief Fernandez, for mentoring the leaders and organizing the boards - they were exemplary!

1^st Semester Junior Leader board results:

 C/SFC Ferguson, Logan; Spanish Springs HS

C/SGT Pineda, Catelyne; Reno HS

C/SFC Shapiro, Lea; P. Hug HS

 1^st Semester Cadet of Semester board results:

C/SGT Lamar Ali; P Hug HS

C/CPL Mia Bernal; Wooster HS

C/PO2  Gavin Ashby; Reed HS

The Spanish Springs Male and Mixed Raider teams and the Reno Female Raiders competed at Raider Nationals Nov 4-5 in Molena, Georgia.  These teams were the Northern Nevada Raider Champions last year for their category, earning their right to compete at this year's nationals.

The Spanish Springs Male and Mixed teams brought home 3 trophies combined!

The Reno ladies finished 15th in their first participation in nationals.

Below is a link to a photo gallery from this competition.

Raider Nationals photo gallery

The Lancers worked on their service-learning project on Saturday, which consisted of 13 cadets going to the Verdi Horse Rescue Facility. The cadets cleaned, picked up a lot of the 'stuff you don't want to step in' and took apart a chicken coop, among other things. Thursday was also a success with our semi-annual blood drive which Ms. Kelly, Ms. Cooper, and JROTC supported. The notes below are from the Vitalant event coordinator - They hit their goal of 51 blood products collected…. Seeing 65 donors that tried to donate.  Blood collections this month have been on a roller-coaster trend , so having a successful blood drive at McQueen has an important impact.  Our next blood drive with McQueen is scheduled for April 13^th.  We next move into our month-long Northern NV Food Bank Food Drive starting today, and finally the JROTC will be hosting an Applebee's Fundraiser this upcoming Saturday. 

Raider season finished on 22 October at Spanish Springs HS and both the meet and Northern Nevada Champions were crowned.

Male Champions - Spanish Springs

Female Champions - Reno

Mixed Champions - Galena

In May of 2022, the Silver State Brigade conducted its annual change of command.  Cadet Colonel Leo Ketcham (Reno HS) handed over his duties and responsibilities with the Brigade to Cadet Colonel Jenny Melendez ) Hug HS). Cadet Command Master Chief Cindy Martinez-Barrera assumed responsibilities as the senior NCO within the Brigade. 

The Spanish Springs High school JROTC ww2 color guard does the flag raising for Street Vibrations motorcycle rally in Reno Nevada. The WW2 color guard is in actual WW2 uniforms that have been donated to us by WW2 soldiers family’s after their passing. Spanish Springs High School is the only JROTC unit that has a WW2 color Guard which honors our hero’s from that time frame. It is with great honor that our cadets are able to pay such a tribute.

Hawks Battalion Leadership Invades Grizzly Ranch!

The Procter R. Hug High School JROTC Battalion held their annual Leadership Camp from August 26th – 28th. During the camp, the command group, company leadership, and staff all came together for the weekend to work on this year's goals, events, plans, and ideas for the future. This camp also challenged the cadets as they completed several team-building events and had a lot of fun doing so. Cadets participated in kayaking, archery, hi/low obstacle courses, and outdoor games where they became acquainted with each other. A very special thanks to Hug HS admin who helped make this possible! Go Hawks!

Reno High School JROTC Leadership Team

Reno High School JROTC Leadership team traveled to Washington D.C. in June. The team qualified for Nationals in the JROTC Leadership and Academic Bowl (JLAB) during the school year, by competing in several rounds of an online competition hosted by College Options. In the last round of the online competition, the team qualified for a trip to Washington DC, paid for by the Army.

In addition to competing in JLAB nationals, the cadets went to four Smithsonian museums, Arlington Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Pentagon, and almost all the monuments. It was a fun and exciting trip, and the team hopes to qualify for next year as well.

The JLAB team consisted of Jinren Jiang, Jazmin Tucker, Athena McKemy and Oscar Colbert. Jazmin Tucker could not travel with us to Washington D.C., so the team competed with three members instead of four. It was an amazing opportunity and the cadets had so much fun!